This invention relates generally to searching for objects in a social networking system, and more particularly to maintaining a structured search query.
Social networking systems allow users to interact with each other by creating user profiles, forming connections to other users, posting content items, and sharing content items. The number of user profiles, content items, and connections increases as the social networking system gains users and increases in popularity. Accordingly, users who are active on the social networking system can view a large number of user profiles and content items.
Using an especially active social networking system may result in a large volume of content items, user profiles, and other activity being presented to a user, which may overwhelm the user with information. Hence, the user may be flooded with content that the user does not find interesting or relevant, making it difficult for the user to identify content of interest. While some social networking systems allow a user to search for a specific item or for items matching a keyword, they do not allow the user to perform a structured search for content items or user profiles based on their connections to other content items or user profiles.